I appreciate everyone's feedback on this subject. While I understand why the age requirement was instituted I don't agree with it. We are a non-profit organization of volunteers and everyone involved has events come up in their life that affect how much time they are able to volunteer. We have had officers that met the current age requirement and that have had difficulty fulfilling the duties of the office. I myself went on a sailboat trip for months and was away from the area and unable to fulfill the duties of the officer during that time. It is already laid out in our constitution that "An officer may be removed at any time with cause, by a unanimous vote of the other officers." therefore if an officer is so derelict in their duties we already have a mechanism to remove them. By instituting an age restriction we are limiting the potential of individuals that could be great officers for the club for no reason. When we have our elections our members should use their best judgement to determine if an individual is able to fulfill the role they are seeking. If it turns out that we grossly misjudged that individuals ability to fill that role then we can remove them.

I also wanted to mention that I have done some research to ensure that there is no age requirement provided by law according to the Nonstock Corporation Act in the Code of Virginia and there is not. Nor is there any age requirements laid out in the Virginia State Corporation Commission documentation. What Chuck mentioned below though about the "2/3 of ALL of the voting members, not just 2/3 of members present at a meeting" is 100% correct.

On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 2:15, galacticprobe via groups.io

<LambuLambu@...> wrote:

After reading the proposal, what Chuck (and Jim) said in their responses, and the reply below, I am inclined to side with Jim and Chuck. Sure, if some 15-year-old wants to shoot for BBAA President, they could if the changes are made. They could even be elected. And then suppose said person can't handle the duties of office. Yes; the other officers can - as stated below - unanimously vote to, and remove, said person from the BBAA president office.

Now, what would be the reason for removing said president? Dereliction? This is a 15-year-old we're hypothetically discussing here, and a person of such age would be in 9th or 10th Grade depending on birthdays and when that person was of age to start school (i.e. my daughter had to wait a year before starting school because of her birthday; she missed the cut-off by 11 days; she turned 6 a month and a week after starting kindergarten, which had her turning 15 a month and a week after starting 9th Grade, so a 15-year-old 9th Grader is possible). Can you honestly blame said president and charge the same with dereliction if high school work interferes with the duties the BBAA president's office demands?

Would the reason be incompetence if said president did not have the necessary knowledge to carry out the duties of BBAA president? Again this hypothetical president is in 9th or 10th grade of high school. How much would such a person know about being the president of an organization as involved as the BBAA?

I was the president of a living history organization for 3 years, and I know all of the grief and aggravation that can come with that office. And for the record, I was 47 years old at the time, and president for 3 years because no one else wanted the job and my name was arbitrarily put on the ballot after the previous president wanted a break after 7 years in the position. Still, I took that bull by the horns and held on for dear life, and when that 4th year was rolling around I removed myself from the ballot. The next person to take that office of president did basically nothing, and it fell to the vice president, and me as "member-at-large" to take up the slack. End result of that year: bad blood between our organization and the venues that once had us in high-demand: bad blood that didn't exist with any other president leading up to and including me: bad blood that not even the VP nor I could stop from forming thanks to an incompetent president and in hindsight, as much of a strain as being president put on me - I was still active duty at the time - I probably should have just sucked up that 4th year to keep our venues happy with us and inviting us back several times throughout the year until we found a competent person to take that office from me. (As a side note: After that year of incompetency, the 7-year president took the office back, but the bad blood was not easy to get rid of. He retook office in 2011 and has been alternating offices with the VP - 3 years as President with a good VP, and then as VP with the former VP taking President - and to this day that organization is still struggling to get back into the good graces of those venues that once praised us, but still have their doubts about the organization, and we're nearing the end of 2022: 11 years and still trying to erase 1 year of incompetency. Is that worth it?) But I digress, only in order to let everyone know I have been in the president's office's shoes and know what the position entails, and what can go wrong if the wrong person takes the president's office.

Now, BBAA officers (and other members), put yourselves in our hypothetical 15-year-old president's shoes: first the feeling of joy at being elected to such a prestigious office, and then being told by all (unanimous) BBAA officers that said president has been voted (a.k.a. kicked) out of the position, removed from office - call it what you will - because of, but not limited to, one of the above reasons.

How do you think that person is going to feel? How would you feel? Sure, one of you might get over it; then again you may not and decide you'd had enough of the BBAA and walk away. But do you think this hypothetical 15-year-old "former" president is going to keep an interest in astronomy? This former president could be thinking they're doing a good job, and then one day is told "We've voted to remove you from the president's office because..." That could kill this person's further interest in astronomy - quite possibly also in the BBAA - and we've done exactly the opposite of what we're setting out to do: bring interest in astronomy to the public and hopefully more members into the BBAA, or to seek out a local astronomy group if they don't live close enough to our area (i.e. a vacationer who happens to stop by a Boardwalk Astronomy or Garden Stars night, or one of the Skywatch events, etc.).

So the age limit has no effect on the BBAA's "incorporated" status, or its 501(3)c non-profit status. What the age limit does have an effect on is maturity concerning the person running for the president's office. Echoing what Chuck said about the last president who was under age 18 and lacked the maturity and integrity to serve in that office... That person's sole purpose for seeking an office in the BBAA and managed to get elected as president was to build a college entrance application resume. I remember many meetings, when I could make them, where another officer had to step in to conduct BBAA business when that president didn't show up (I have no firm reasons why this person was absent, but at a guess, I would say school work was getting in the way).

Also as Chuck said, things did not run smoothly when it came to events and BBAA participation (i.e. scheduling) and we had to back out of several because too many were scheduled on the same day and we didn't have enough people to cover them all. We gave the event coordinators a "We'll be there" only to turn around when we realized we didn't have the manpower to cover some events, and tell those coordinators "Well... we won't be there after all." It caused some - let's call it "iffy" rather than bad blood - with those venues, and it took a few years of hard-pressed work on the BBAA's part to get rid of the iffy blood, and rebuild the trust I'd heard so much about that we once had, and lost, with area people and city leaders.

Do we really want to go through all that again - and then have to restore that age restriction we're talking about removing to the Constitution - because "it sounded like a good idea at the time"? Let that old adage of hindsight being 20/20 be in sync with some 20/20 foresight for once and remember: that age restriction was put in place for a reason.

I also agree with Chuck in that an age restriction for Treasurer should be a no-brainer.

In closing I reiterate: Things were changed for a reason; something was broken and needed to be fixed, so we fixed it. Things are not broken now, so let's apply the logical approach of "If it ain't broke, then don't fix it", and not 'Red Green's' questionable philosophy of "If it ain't broke, then you're not trying."

My $2 worth (inflation - 2¢ just doesn't cut it these days).

Dino.

-----Original Message-----
From: Shawn Loescher <shawn.loescher@...>
To: BackBayAstro@groups.io
Sent: Wed, Oct 5, 2022 9:25 am
Subject: Re: [BackBayAstro] Proposed change to the BBAA Constitution (Please Vote) #poll-notice

I appreciate everyone's feedback on this subject. While I understand why the age requirement was instituted I don't agree with it. We are a non-profit organization of volunteers and everyone involved has events come up in their life that affect how much time they are able to volunteer. We have had officers that met the current age requirement and that have had difficulty fulfilling the duties of the office. I myself went on a sailboat trip for months and was away from the area and unable to fulfill the duties of the officer during that time. It is already laid out in our constitution that "An officer may be removed at any time with cause, by a unanimous vote of the other officers." therefore if an officer is so derelict in their duties we already have a mechanism to remove them. By instituting an age restriction we are limiting the potential of individuals that could be great officers for the club for no reason. When we have our elections our members should use their best judgement to determine if an individual is able to fulfill the role they are seeking. If it turns out that we grossly misjudged that individuals ability to fill that role then we can remove them.

I also wanted to mention that I have done some research to ensure that there is no age requirement provided by law according to the Nonstock Corporation Act in the Code of Virginia and there is not. Nor is there any age requirements laid out in the Virginia State Corporation Commission documentation. What Chuck mentioned below though about the "2/3 of ALL of the voting members, not just 2/3 of members present at a meeting" is 100% correct.